JAXA wants to continue with Hayabusa 2. However there is/was a huge fight about the budget. Main problem was the budget for the launch vehicle. 2 months ago or so there was a report which said, that JAXA had to find another launch vehicle or the project gets cancelled. Now the Italian space agency played saviour and overed the VEGA. So finally we might see another Hayabusa in 2011.

I was trying to hunt around for word on what happened with Hayabusa 2's budget crisis. I found a Japanese blogger, Shinya Matsuura, talking about a Q&A session, here (Google Translation to English).

I don't read Japanese, so I'd love to get a better translation of the last few paragraphs of his 8/23 entry than Google Translate's:

QUOTE

HAYABUSA two of the original plan was for a 2010 launch, and付KANAKAっbudget, and the conditions attached to the implementation of measures to raise the overseas launch, have been slow and loose.

I have heard that the 2014 launch talks. No suitable target objects and until now, the chances of that the next 2018 years. In this case, "Marco Polo (HAYABUSA Mark2)" because they wore the timing, "Hayabusa" will automatically disappear (8 / 26 Note: In other words, HAYABUSA and disappear, Japan's asteroid probe, 2003 The launch will be a generous 15 years that it empty. I think it's too bad deal for the success of his mission to you. and above all if the whole 15 years, the technology accumulated in the bush also, they will go and dissipation of planetary science researchers also raised. And of course, at present there is no guarantee the Marco Polo to be launched in 2018).

In other words the years 2013 and 2014 will be launched, also failed, even if the overseas launch of the procurement method, H-IIA launch that could.

Apparently, Marco Polo is considered a more likely project? And Hayabusa 2 may suffer from both budgetary and orbit issues and fall between the cracks?

The gist I get out of it is that the blogger doesn't think that there would be any suitable target from 2013 through 2017, and that if you launched in 2018 then the current probe technology would be too outdated (better to start over with a new design), and you would lose the skill set from the original Hayabusa team by that time in any event.

So he's saying, basically - now or never on Hayabusa 2 (unless they happen to find a new target - say, with Pan-STARRS, or another survey.) And the budget stuff is STILL up in the air at the time of writing, despite the fact they said it'd be decided summer 2008.

I saw a presentation today on Hayabusa 2 that was presented to NASA by JAXA. As already stated, they're looking at a C-type asteroid with a 2014-15 launch and an arrival in 2017-18. They are hoping to carry Minerva again.

They are also looking at Hayabusa Mark 2, but there were no details in the presentation about what a Mk 2 spacecraft would do in capability/science above the Mk 1. A Mk 2 is looking at a 2020-21 launch (if memory serves).

JAXA put forward (yesterday) to the Space Activities Committe (or Commission) (SAC, anyway) their Hayabusa 2 proposal for feasibility study. They (SAC) will complete their technical feasibility study during August this year. Their conclusion will then be forwarded to the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports and the government's Space Development Strategy HQ.

Whether next year's budget allocation will reflect this is everybody's concern at the moment.

Unlike Hayabusa, Hayabusa 2 will be going to organic rich asteroid. After initial sampling on arrival Hayabusa 2 will release an object to the surface and create an artificial crator of 5,6 m in diameter.

Hayabusa 2 will then land in the crator for further sampling and return to the Earth.

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